30 August 2006

so little, so late

Sam is off to conference, and I am in Portland finishing up the capitalist extravaganza and packing all the crap we bought. many things to blog about, but it hasn't been a blogging space lately. US politics, when you're in it, is so ridiculous as to be unbloggable. we've watched the nightly news a few times with Sam's parents and it's horrifying in its blathery nothingness. the local paper isn't much better. I hide out by doing the crossword and looking at nothing else. (except the celeb gossip that's directly above the crossword, of course. the eye wanders.) we have had lovely meals with our friend Joel, which involved watching mad amounts of Deadwood season 3 at a time, such that my dreams are filled with sinister-yet-somehow-attractive, sideburn-sporting, dirty men. it's all good. I think there should be a law against watching more than three of those at a time. the show is too damn good.

I did want to blog about hindsight, panic, being in the middle of things and unable to see a way out. my thesis is this: the way out is not along the path you'd planned. or, to put it more bluntly, if your path leads to a well-defined, established goal, you're going down the wrong one. because along the way, invariably it seems, you start having to swim upstream to get to that goal. going against the current is fine, for a bit. but you don't want to get all the way upstream, spawn, and then realise: crap! now I'm dead!

salmon metaphors aside, the moment when you think: this is all too much. my life is not what I wanted it to be. but I thought I wanted that thing. that thing I'm striving for. maybe I'm just worthless and a better person would go after it harder or more forcefully. the moment you think that, you need to step back and reassess. because that's the moment when your swimming upstream starts to lead to self-destruction, like the fishies.

the people I know who have found some sort of fulfilment are those that realised: hey, I don't need to swim upstream anymore. this other thing makes me happy, and so I'll do that. (but what about the established, shiny goal over there?) forget about it. try to realise the shine is just tin foil and so much promise, not a truly nice place to be. be where you are. find a place that feels good, find friends, a trader joe's, whatever makes you tick. and be there.